The rate at which cars are being stolen — which measures volume of vehicles against the U.S. population — also rose for a third consecutive year in 2017, reaching its worst point since 2010.

While automakers brag that their vehicles are safer than ever and that simply hot-wiring a car might not do the trick anymore, that doesn't mean it's hard to steal one.

The number of vehicle thefts in which the criminal used the key spiked 31 percent from 2013 to 2015, according to an October 2016 report by the crime bureau. During that three-year stretch, thieves swiped nearly 150,000 vehicles using that method.

And it may be getting worse. Keyless ignition was standard equipment on 62 percent of cars sold in 2018, up from 11 percent in 2008, according to car-buying advice site Edmunds.

More incentive to steal

The incentive for stealing vehicles has reached historic highs, as well. The average price of a new vehicle was $37,188 in November, an all-time high and up about $3,000 from three years earlier, according to Edmunds.

Some thieves are conspiring with overseas contacts to ship stolen vehicles out of the country, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau and the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators. It's particularly lucrative for high-end models that can cost much more in foreign markets.

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The National Insurance Crime Bureau recently released its annual 'Hot Wheels' report, which identifies the 10 most-stolen vehicles in 2016 in the United States according to vehicle theft data.
Number one on the list: the Honda Accord with 50,427 total thefts in 2016. WIECK

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"Outbound shipping in the USA is not seen as high-risk, and the ports don’t have the available resources to check every shipping container," Reg Phillips, CEO of Ontario-based Vehicle Road Safety Solutions and international board chair of the auto theft investigators association, said in an email.

The FBI and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did not respond to requests for comment.

To be sure, theft remains far below its all-time high of 1.66 million vehicles in 1991.

Scafidi said in the long run, technology will likely make it more difficult for thieves to get away with entire vehicles. For example, fingerprint scanning could be adopted to ensure only the owner can drive the vehicle.

But as often happens, when technology improves, so do the thieves.

"Thieves have caught up," Phillips said. "Manufacturers have added security platforms to newer vehicles, and the knowledge on how to circumvent these security features (is) more easily available."

Keys contribute to trend

Another potential reason for the increase: Thieves can use key fobs dropped in a public place to find a vehicle by remotely activating its horn with a tap of a button.

That's what happened to Maumelle, Arkansas, resident Kelsie Beaulieu after her boyfriend recently dropped her car keys when they went bowling.

Days later, the police arrested the suspected thief and recovered her 2011 Mazda3 sedan. But its interior had been trashed.

Andrew Steele of Troutdale, Oregon, had a similar experience when someone apparently grabbed the keys to his 2006 Ford Five Hundred from his girlfriend while she was shopping. He believes the thief used the key to find the car in a Walmart parking lot.

"They just hit the alarm button," he said. "They had to have done it that way."

Steele later managed to find his car in a public parking lot in Portland after someone reported on Facebook that they had seen it.

Afterward, he bought a $50 GPS device to attach to the bottom of his car to track his vehicle in the future.

One possibility that some experts are worried about is the prospect of thieves remotely swiping key-fob data and replicating it to start a vehicle and drive off.

But Scafidi of the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators said there hasn't yet been any proven real-world examples of that happening. Instead, it's more commonly used to steal things from the vehicle's interior.

To avoid car theft, consider these common-sense steps:

1. Lock your car.

2. Use the Club, a theft-prevention device. "Make it difficult for people," Scafidi said.

3. Park your car in well-lit places.

4. Don't leave your key in the car.

But even those tips might not be enough, Scafidi acknowledged.

"If the world-class auto thief that we all fear is out there and runs across your vehicle, they’re gonna get it," he said. "That's why we have insurance, God forbid something happens."